Hope's Graveyard
by Anrheithwyr
Summary: They buried a boy today, his family all gathered around in dark clothing. There was a minister-there's always a minister, because no one wants to bury family without God there to watch over-and everyone cried. Everyone always cries, and Daddy says I ought to get used to it, but I've lived on the edge of the graveyard my whole life and I can't ever get used to someone crying.


_May 9, 1998_

They buried a boy today, his family all gathered around in dark clothing. There was a minister-there's always a minister, because no one wants to bury family without God there to watch over-and everyone cried.

Everyone always cries, and Daddy says I ought to get used to it, but I've lived on the edge of the graveyard my whole life and I can't ever get used to someone crying.

I watched from a distance while my brothers helped to bury the body, and I felt uncomfortable, standing there as a family mourned a boy I have never met and will never meet.

Everyone had bright red hair and the woman-the mother?-sobbed so terribly loudly as they buried the boy. The others gathered around her, speaking in low comforting tones to reassure her that everything was okay.

After all, there was a minister, and that means the boy is safe, right? Daddy says that as long as there is a minister at the funeral, then the person who died is safe and in Heaven.

He said that after Momma died, too.

After the others left and my brothers had finished burying the casket, it was just me and one of the many redheaded boys.

He hadn't stood with the others, instead wringing his hands and staring off into the distance, like he didn't want to be there.

I don't blame him. I hate funerals more than anything else, but funerals is all my family has ever done ever since we've been around.

We are very practised in the art of preparing the dead, my brothers tell me. I don't know quite what they mean, and I'm not sure I like it much.

The redheaded boy stood there for ages afterwards, not moving or speaking, just standing over the grave.

Eventually, Daddy called me inside for dinner and by the time we had finished eating, the redheaded boy was gone.

I probably won't ever see him again. They rarely ever come back.

…

_April 1, 1999_

I nearly screamed when I came out this morning to collect the mail from our box. It was early, and I wasn't expecting anyone to show up.

There was a redheaded boy not much older than my eldest brother. He had hair like a candle and I stared at him.

He was sitting at one of the graves, hands held so close to his chest and I could hear the deep sobs of someone mourning.

I forgot all about the mail then, my attention drawn to the boy who sat at the grave and cried. They were more than tears of sadness.

I am not sure why, but this boy was angry-at the person who died, maybe? I'm not sure and my brothers will not explain to me why the boy just sat and cried.

I want to comfort him, but Daddy says that that is a _very bad idea_.

He says we aren't to mess with people who come to the graveyard to mourn, and so I was very quiet about gathering the mail and slipping back into the house without a word.

I wonder if the redheaded boy will come back or if he will be like all the others who only come once or twice and yell at the dead like they can change anything about the fact that they're dead.

…

_April 1, 2002_

He was back today-the man with the red hair, I mean. He always sits at the same grave and cries, his hands over his eyes and a blanket wrapped around his shoulders.

My brothers say that he is mourning his brother, who died in war. I wouldn't know-I've never spoken to the man, and I've never even looked at the grave that he mourns year after year.

The man is more dedicated than most. People usually only visit that first year and maybe another year or two after that, but the redheaded man hasn't missed a year yet.

Daddy says not to bother him, to just leave him be until he leaves, and so I do nothing. I am scared, just a little bit I must admit, of the redheaded man who comes every year.

He is big and has sad eyes and a sad face. My brothers say that it is because he is missing his brother-that he is missing a part of himself.

_Could I help him find that part of himself, the part that he lost? _I want to help, but I can only watch from afar and never interfere. Interfering is not my job.

My job is to watch over the dead, Daddy says. I'm supposed to make sure they don't wake up and get out of their graves.

I think that, sometimes, Daddy forgets I am no longer a child. Dead people do not climb from their graves, but redheaded boys _do _come to mourn them every year.

…

_April 1, 2004_

He will come every year, the man with the red hair and the sad blue eyes. He will come every year until he is old and grey.

He will come every year until he is nothing more than another forgotten gravestone, like all the others, left unattended by everyone except me.

Daddy says I oughtn't to think like that-so depressed-but I can't help it. I'm nineteen and I live on the outskirts of a graveyard.

I am a daughter raised by the dead, and I have watched a man with red hair come for six years to sit in front of a stone and cry.

I have watched others come and go, of course, but none have affected quite like this man whose name I do not even know.

I almost don't want to know his name, as though this is all some strange faery-tale and by asking, I am breaking the spell.

I am afraid that if I ask him his name-if I acknowledge him at all-the man with the red hair might disappear for good, like all the others who leave and never come back.

He sits for hours, until the day slowly bleeds into afternoon. He sits until the moon begins to heave itself into the sky, and it is only then-when it is just the stars and me as witness-that the redheaded man gets up leaves.

I worry every year that the _next _April will be the one where he doesn't come back, finally getting over the pain in his heart from the loss of his brother.

But he never forgets, and we always spend April 1st like this, one of us sitting in a graveyard and crying and the other one only watching, unable to do anything.

...

_April 1, 2007_

I was tempted to join the redheaded man this year as he came in to mourn his brother. I was so tempted to sit next to him and mourn as well.

Daddy is dead, and I don't quite know how to cope. Daddy is dead and there is a strange in our graveyard with flowers.

It still hurts to think about, remembering Daddy's cold hands and blank face as he was lowered into the coffin.

It has only been a month and I can't even bring myself to visit the stone, which is only metres away from my front door.

How can this young man visit year after year without ever saying a thing? How can he visit even though no one else ever does?

I want to ask him if it ever stops hurting, the pain of losing someone. I was so young when Momma died-only six-and I wasn't even sure that I was supposed to cry.

I hardly remember Momma enough to cry when they buried her, and I only even know her name and that she even existed because she is buried near our house.

But I am twenty-two now, and I remember Daddy. I remember Daddy, who taught my brother how to bury strangers without a word.

Daddy, who taught me how to say "I'm sorry for your loss" before I was even in school. Daddy, who raised me to be a daughter of the graveyard, only a little more solid than the ghosts who traipse through this field at night.

Does the redheaded man remember his brother? Does he still remember the times they spent together, both the good and the bad? I hope he does, and I hope he never forgets his brother.

I hope the flame-haired man comes back every year, because I am tired of the dead being forgotten or lost.

…

_April 1, 2009_

He is back again, the redheaded man. I have begun looking forward to his visits, in an odd sense of the word.

The redheaded man is a permanent fixture in my life now. He comes every April 1st without failure and I almost look forward to his visits.

He always comes alone, year after year after year.

Does it hurt, visiting this grave every year? I know that the redheaded man cries and sometimes he mumbles things, but I do not know if, after all this time, it still hurts.

It still hurts me, the pain of losing Daddy. I hope that the redheaded man does not feel the sharp pain of loss too badly. I wouldn't want him to be sad.

It is only me, now, who lives in the house. My brothers have both married and built their own houses in different parts that border the graveyard.

After all, the house goes to me, Daddy said when he died. The house is mine, he told me, and I have to keep up my job of watching over the dead to make sure they don't get up from their graves.

Daddy, I have been watching for twenty four years. I am faithful, I swear, but it gets so hard watching people come in and out every year.

It gets hard watching my brothers coming out every now and then to dig a hole for a new body of some dead stranger.

It gets so hard watching the redheaded man come to mourn his brother, but I never say anything to him. After all, you said I should leave the living to mourn their dead.

And that's what I'm doing, Daddy. I'm leaving the living to mourn their dead. You just never told me how painful it would be.

…

_April 1, 2014_

There is a man in the graveyard this morning, a man with hair the colour of flames and a sad look in his blue eyes.

He always comes around this time of year-April 1st-and he always sits in front of the same grave.

I don't know what he says, but I can hear him talking, leaning over so his fingers trail across the top of the gravestone, his voice cracking with sadness.

He has brought a blanket and flowers, but other than that, he is alone.

He is always alone, ever since that very first year, when they first buried the redheaded man's brother nearly sixteen years ago.

I have never asked the man his name, nor have I even spoken to him, but he is a constant fixture in my life, it seems, the boy who comes to mourn his brother year after year without a word to anyone else, just sitting in silence.

One day I will go to him and comfort him with kind words. One day I will go to him and offer a bit of company and I won't even mind if he says no.

One day I will ask why he picked this day of all days to visit. One day I will ask him what his name is and what the brother's name had been.

But that is not today. I will not do any of that today.

Instead, I will watch from my house, just as silent as I am every other year. We will both mourn in our own ways, neither acknowledging the other.

The redheaded man always comes alone and sits in front of his brother's grave without ever saying a thing.

I pity him, the redheaded man. I pity him for his loss and I pity him for the way he always looks so sad coming in and going away.

I pity the redheaded man who comes to mourn, and I pity him because no one ever comes to tell him everything is okay.

Someone should tell him that things are okay. After all, didn't they bury his brother with a minister present?

Daddy always said that as long as there is a minister at the funeral, then the person who died is safe and in Heaven.

He said that after Momma died, too.

(No one said anything about Daddy going to Heaven, though, when he dropped dead of a heart attack at age fifty two.

No one said anything about where Daddy was going, not when he was buried without a minister present.)

And I don't know, really, if the man's brother is safe. I don't know if anyone is safe or okay or if they ever will be.

But I know that I'm twenty nine years old, and all I want to do is go comfort a man who comes to sit in my graveyard and mourn his dead brother.

…

"Excuse me?" the young woman asked softly, and George turned to look at her. She was very young looking, younger even than Ginny, with long brown hair and big, soft brown eyes.

George had seen her around before, one of the people who lived on the graveyard property. He had seen the two men that lived with her, too, big burly men who were probably her brothers.

"Excuse me?" the woman whispered again, and George tried to smile at her, despite the tears that flooded his eyes. "What's your name?"

"My…my name?" George repeated, shocked. He had been coming to this graveyard ever since his brother died sixteen years ago, and not once had the girl ever spoken to him. "George Weasley. My name is George."

"Do you miss him, George Weasley?" the girl asked, pointing towards Fred's gravestone, which had begun to wear away. "Do you miss your brother?"

"Yes." George tried to hold back the tears that came uninvited to his eyes, swiping at them as the girl looked on in a respective manner. "I miss him so damn much. I…yeah, I _miss _him. He was my twin brother."

"I lost my father seven years ago," the young woman said, sitting next to George on the grass. "And I lost my mother died almost twenty-three years ago. I still miss them on some days. I…I never really got over losing either one of them."

"Yeah…" George murmured, letting his voice trail off into the wind. They sat like that for a while, neither saying a word, just sitting in front of Fred's grave. "What's your name?" George finally asked, more than a little curious.

"Hope." The woman replied with a laugh. "My name is Hope. I've lived here my whole life and…you're the only one whoever comes back. Sixteen years straight, and you always come back."

"Yeah…" He couldn't think of a response to her statement, more than a little surprised she'd bothered to remember such a thing.

"My dad used to say that, if they buried you with a minister present then you were safe. If they buried you with a minister present, it meant you were going to Heaven." She whispered.

"Do you think…?" he hated to even ask, but George suddenly couldn't get the image of his brother, laughing, with a halo over his head, playing pranks on angels.

"Yeah," Hope murmured, getting to her feet. "I think so. I'm sorry for your loss, George Weasley. And I'm sorry I didn't ever say something sooner."

George turned away, tears springing to his eyes again as a wave of emotion hit him. Sixteen years and he was still as torn up about his brother as he had been that first year.

"Thank you for saying something." George said, turning to look at Hope, but she was gone, almost like she had never been there at all. George wondered if she _had _ever truly been there, or if she was a figment of his imagination.

Figment or not, George still appreciated her kind words, and the way she had seemed so sure that Fred was up in Heaven somewhere, goofing off and just waiting for George.


End file.
